A Ton of Love A Ton of Hate
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: Joe tries to apologize and is not forgiven. R.


**Title: **_A Ton of Love (A Ton of Hate) _[1/1]

**Universe: **_The Following_ present, 2x15

**Rating: **R

**Pairing**: Joe Carroll/Claire Matthews

**Summary**: Joe tries to apologize and is not forgiven. Claire takes matters into her own hands.

**Author's Note: **I have had _more_ than enough of this whole Ryan-to-the-rescue thing. I want Claire to kick some ass and leave him standing by helpless for once. Hence, this.

**Background Note**: I heard shitty things happened between Ryan and Claire at the end of the finale, and because I'm a masochist, obviously I had to watch it. And it was, as predicted, shitty. (And really fucking stupid.) However, I'm actually glad I watched the episode, because we got some fantastic other scenes—especially my favorite, the confrontation near the end between Joe and Claire. I will never get enough of how phenomenally these two play off one another. Hopefully I did them some justice with this, though this story _does _go off in quite a different direction than what the show had planned. (But, let's face it—the show's plans suck.) Please enjoy-at least the latter half!

_._

_._

_"Before anyone else dies, this might well be the last time I see you face-to-face, and I wanted to say... I am__** sorry**__."  
_

"_No__…__"_

_"Yes, I am so __**terribly**__ sorry. For everything I have ever done to you, and __**everything **__I have __**ever**__ done to… to __our__** little boy**__. You must tell him that, Claire."_

"_No—"_

"_Forgive me."_

"_**No!**__"_

—Joe Carroll & Claire Matthews, 2x15

.

.

.

"Forgive me."

He was begging her now, almost crying, as he held her up against the wall in the psycho twins' now-deserted mansion. She could hear the tears in his voice, but she knew they were lies. They had to be lies. Everything with him was a lie.

"No." She shook her head, refusing to give in even as she felt him press the edge of the knife against her neck and she struggled futilely against the duct tape holding her hands behind her back. "No, I don't forgive you."

"Please, Claire." His left hand, which had been fisting her jacket, let go, and moved to stroke her hair, her cheek, even as she flinched away from him. "Forgive me. Please. I need you to."

"No."

"If, if not for me, then—" his voice cracked "—then for our little baby. Our little boy. _Please. _Please forgive me—for him." He stroked his knuckles against her cheek. "He wouldn't want us to fight, Claire. He'd want his parents to forgive one another. You know he'd want that."

"No," she choked out, leaning as far away from his touch as she could manage and shaking her head as vigorously as she dared against that knife. "No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't want that."

"Yes, he would. He's a good boy. And besides," Joe added quietly, moving his head to follow hers, to look into her eyes, "I've forgiven you."

Claire's eyes flashed, and she strained against the knife to get in his face. "For _what?_" she demanded to know. "What have I _ever _done—?"

"Oh, you know what you've done," he snarled, suddenly furious, stepping closer to her, bearing down on her. "You _know_."

"Bull_shit_!" she shouted in his face. "_I_ haven't done anything. _You're_ the one who ruined his life. He will never be normal; he will never have a normal life—and that is because of _you_, Joe! And I will _never _forgive you for it!" She had strained so far forward to scream at him that the knife ended up slicing through her skin in one long, shallow gash.

She watched his eyes light up at the sight of her blood; watched his lips part. He looked hungry, starved. He looked like he wanted to devour her.

"Do it," she spat out, leaning closer to the knife, feeling it tear into more of her skin but no longer caring about the pain. What did it matter anymore? She'd always known he'd kill her one day. So what if today was the day? At least it would all be over. "Do it; I know you want to do it. You've always wanted to kill me."

He shook his head. "No. No, I haven't." But his eyes didn't leave the bloody knife or the cut on her neck and she knew he wanted to see more. He always wanted more.

"I always knew that's what it was about, you know," she told him, drawing herself up so their eyes were more level. "I always knew you murdering all those girls wasn't about your book failing or your obsession with Poe or anything else. You wanted to kill me, but you didn't have the balls to do it, so you killed all those helpless little college girls instead. Well—" She made her body go still beneath the knife, forcing herself not to fight or shrink away as she stared over at him with expressionless eyes. "Here's your chance to prove yourself, Joe. Let's see if you can do it, once and for all."

"No. No, no, no…" He shook his head, rambling and turning his head away as he always did when someone caught him off-guard. He frowned, his forehead creasing as he looked back at her. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would I have ever wanted to kill you back then? I loved you. I _love_ you. And those girls were not _about _you."

"Yes they were," Claire snapped, certain of it now. His denial had proved it. Despite apparently still being so adept at fooling others to do his bidding, he wasn't very good at fooling her anymore. Or maybe she had just learned all his tricks now. Her blinders had been taken off, after all, and she supposed she now saw him for what he was and nothing more. "I know those girls were about me, Joe, and whether or not you choose to admit it—" She shrugged. She wished she could throw up her hands to show her disinterest, but they were still taped behind her back, and she could hardly move her wrists let alone lift her arms. "I don't care," she told him. "I don't care what you say to me, but just know that I know the truth. You play up this charade of loving me, but I know you've never really felt it."

"Yes, I have," he shot back at once. "I have always felt it. Always."

"No_, _you _haven't_," Claire maintained, pushing against the knife once more, the only thing she could think of to do to make him pay attention to her. "It's bullshit. I have always been a cover story to you, nothing more. You just used me as proof that you were normal, that you were harmless. _Oh, he has a wife and a baby? Must be a regular guy!_ Because who would marry a murderer, right?" Hysterical laughter bubbled to her lips and she let it out, suddenly feeling wild and crazed—and so close to death, with that knife against her throat. "Who would have a baby with a monster? What woman would be that fucking _STUPID? _That _BLIND_?"

"Claire, you are _not_—"

"Don't lie," she interrupted sharply, jutting her chin out to challenge him despite the knife tearing at the skin of her neck. "I know all you thought about when we met was how to use me to your greatest advantage. The second you saw me—"

"No," he shook his head, chuckling, and allowed his hands to relax around her for a moment. "No, love, when we met, all I thought about was how I could convince you to jump into the nearest bed with me." His lips twitched into a momentary smile as he stepped closer to her. "And if I'm being honest," he murmured, brining his face within an inch of hers, "it's still all I think about."

"Get off me," she whispered as he neared, her voice shaking as she leaned as far back against the wall as she could to avoid him—which wasn't far at all. If her arms were free, she would've pushed him off, but they were taped too tight and there was no releasing them. "Get off." She tried to edge away from him to the right or the left, but there was nowhere to go, not with him surrounding her on every side, not with that knife pressed tight once more against her neck.

He stepped even closer to her, and she froze—she stopped fighting, stopped moving, even stopped breathing for a second—when he pressed his pelvis up to hers. There was no mistaking the stiffness she felt there for anything but what it was. Her stomach plummeted so drastically at the feel of him that she thought she might throw up.

"We've never done it with your hands tied behind your back before," he mused, an eager smile playing at his lips. One of his hands slipped beneath her shirt and ran up her bare side while the other kept the knife tight against her neck, ensuring there was no escape. "It should be fun, don't you think? A nice change of pace."

"Don't you dare," she whispered. She would've screamed, but her breath was coming in quick and shallow now, and she could barely get enough air to speak, let alone shout. Her body shivered and tried to shrink away from his touch, but there was nowhere to go. "Don't you dare do this to me. I will never—I will _NEVER _love you again if you do this to me. Joe, I swear to _God_—"

"You won't love me again regardless," he interrupted calmly, smooth as ever, "and I've learned to accept that this past year. So I do think I'll take my chances…" He reached up to brush a handful of her brown curls behind her ear, and then bent forward to press his face against the newly exposed skin of her cheek and neck, breathing her in deep. "Oh, Jesus, you smell amazing," he groaned. Her ears filled with the sound of his inhale as her blood began to pound beneath her skin and her heart started to race in her chest. "You have no idea how much I've missed you. How often I thought of you when we were apart." He buried his face against her throat, kissing at the side of her neck even as she struggled to move away from him. It was futile: his lips always found her, with his breath hot against her skin as he spoke between wet kisses. "All those years alone… A _decade_… I've been dying without you, sweetheart. Falling apart at the seams."

"Stop," she tried to say, but he held the knife so tight against her neck that she couldn't speak without it slicing her, and so fell silent instead to avoid the pain, and shut her eyes. She began to understand, with a creeping sense of sickening, paralyzing dread, why some women didn't fight back. Why some didn't scream. Why some never said a single word.

"So soft," he murmured, his lips moving across her neck, to her throat, to her jaw. He trailed her blood with his lips, smearing it across her face. Her body started to shake uncontrollably as he moved towards her face; it was somehow so much worse, now that his mouth was nearing hers. It was actually going to happen now, she knew. He'd threatened before, he'd hinted before, but _now_—

She began to panic at the thought, at the _reality _that was coming for her. It was relentless and inescapable and she could feel herself start to go. The fear was beginning to overcome her now: she couldn't feel her hands, her legs were weak, her head was buzzing, and she could hardly hear anything above the pounding of her blood between her ears and the thumping of her heart in her chest. She tried to force it all back—tried to swallow it all down—but she forgot about the knife on her neck, and when she tried to gulp back her fear, the knife sliced through her. It cut through another, deeper layer of her skin, and she whimpered aloud in pain, unable to hide her suffering this time.

"Shh," he whispered to her cry, brushing his lips across her cheek. He took her chin in his hand, pulling it to his level and aligning it with his. "Everything's okay," he told her quietly. She tried to avoid his eyes, but it was impossible to look away from him. He held her gaze, locking it with his, as he rubbed the side of her chin gently with his thumb. "How are you still so soft?" he wondered aloud. His eyes blinked over at her slowly, as if he actually wanted her to give him an answer. She turned her eyes away from him. "How are you still so perfect, so beautiful? After everything you've been through? After dying like you did?" He closed his eyes, leaning so close to her that their noses touched. She tucked her head as far back as she could, but he always matched her. "My god, you are so extraordinary; do you know that? You are unlike anyone else I've ever met."

Claire shut her eyes, refusing to acknowledge his words. Part of her was scared that if she tried to speak, nothing would come out and she'd be mute. Another part of her was terrified what he might do—how he might make it worse—if she said the wrong thing. She felt tears gather and begin to leak out of the corners of her eyes, and though she tried to turn her head away from him to hide them, she knew from the way he touched her that he saw them. His hand was surprisingly—jarringly—gentle and careful against her cheeks as he brushed her tears away, one at a time, again and again, until she didn't have any left to give.

The next thing she felt was his mouth on hers.

Her eyes shot open the second his lips touched hers, and though she tried to pull away, he held her in place—one hand gripping her chin and the other gripping the knife. There was no gentleness in his fingers anymore; no patience or softness. Still, she kept her lips clamped tight together as he kissed her, refusing to give in even as he held her still and tried to force his tongue in between her lips.

"Open your mouth for me, love," he told her, his breath coming in pants now as he pulled away for a second. He kissed her again and again, harder, faster, trying to pry her mouth open with his. "Come on now. Open yourself to me."

"No." She shook her head, trying to turn it as far away from him as she could and earning a few more cuts in the process. "No, stop."

He readjusted his grip on her chin, shoving his thumb and index finger into the hollows of her cheeks until he separated her rows of teeth. "_Open_," he commanded, and then he pressed his mouth against hers again, pushing his tongue inside when there was enough space. She gagged at the taste and feel of him inside her mouth, but when she tried to bite down to get rid of him, his hand holding her jaw apart didn't let her. The most she could do was squeeze his fingers between her teeth, but that did nothing, for the thick outer flesh of her cheeks protected his hand.

She tried to force him off, but he was too close, too big, and she had to way to hit him with her hands tied behind her back like they were. She tried to move her legs to kick him, but he pressed her up against the wall so tightly she could barely breathe, let alone move to attack him. She'd forgotten how bigger than her he was, how completely he could cover and consume and overtake her.

"Christ," he gasped, pulling his mouth from hers momentarily to catch his breath. "You taste so good." His hot breath around her choked her as nearly as badly as that gas had hours ago, but she knew she had no hope of falling unconscious this time. He was going to keep her awake and he was going to make sure she was present for every single second of whatever hell he was about to put her through.

"And you _feel_…" She heard the knife clatter to the floor as he reached for her with both hands now. One buried itself in her hair, holding her in place by the roots, while the other forced its way beneath her clothes. "Oh, you feel amazing," he moaned, pushing his hand down beneath the waistband of her jeans and into her underwear. "Just like I remember. _Better_ than I remember."

His mouth was on hers again then, and his fingers were deep inside her, and suddenly she wasn't terrified anymore—she was furious. How dare he think he can do this to her? After all the horror and terror and heartbreak he had put her through—now _this_? No. No, he was not allowed to do _this_.

She wished she had her arms free to shove him off, to really force him back—to punch him and choke him and claw him—but they were still taped tight behind her back. She used what little means of defense was left to her, and instead chose to knee him in the thigh, the closest part of him she could reach. He grunted at the hit, stumbling back only a half step in surprise—but it was enough. Her mouth was free from his and there was space now, between them, for her to try to beat him back.

"Get _off!_" she shouted, lifting her foot as high as she could and stamping the heel of her shoe down hard on top of his.

He howled in pain, jumping away from her, and she took the opportunity to swing her other leg back and kick him squarely in the crotch. She grinned when he crumpled to the ground with a choked groan; she knew it had hurt so much worse than it usually would have, because he'd been hard, and she took a vindictive pleasure in that fact.

She knew she only had seconds before he got back up—seconds before he would be on top of her again, and inside her this time—and so she dove for the knife, managing to grab it even despite her shaking, tied hands. Luckily, they grew steadier as she sawed through the tape and then—she was free! Her hands sprang apart at once, and she cursed at the soreness in her shoulders. Those psycho twins, Luke and Mark, had only tied them behind her back a handful of hours ago when they'd brought her to this unmapped mansion in the middle of nowhere as bait for Joe and Ryan, but it had felt like weeks to her weary muscles.

She tore off the tape as quickly as she could, wincing at the pain but never slowing, because Joe was starting to get back up again and she could see that look in his eye—it was not love, or arousal, or mockery—but hate. Fury. Finally, he was looking at her truthfully: with the intention to kill her shining clearly through his cold, dark eyes. She didn't hesitate to give him the very same look back.

He was up on both feet by the time she got to him, but it was no problem—she simply drew her arm back and slammed her fist into his face. She heard a muffled _crack_, but she couldn't tell if it was his nose or her hand or just the sound of flesh hitting flesh. She'd never punched anyone before, and she wasn't sure what sound she should be looking for. It didn't matter, though—her punch had been good, apparently, because he fell back at once, tripping over his own feet, and she couldn't help herself. She kicked him as he fell, kicked him as he was down, all the while listening with an ever-growing sense of gratification as he groaned louder and louder each time in pain.

She still held the knife tight in her left hand, but she didn't use it on him. Not yet. She would use it. She would kill him. But not until she'd made him suffer for what he'd done to her all these years: for the lies and the deaths; for the torture and the humiliation. Oh, yes, she was going to make him suffer for it all. She was going to make _him_wish he'd never met _her_, not the other way around.

She kicked him again, harder, faster, watching with mounting joy as he curled in on himself, as he began coughing up blood, as he became unable to make any sound except one long groan of agony. She kicked, and kicked, and kicked, until—

"Claire!"

She jumped in shock at the sound of her name, spinning around to pinpoint where it was coming from. She recognized the voice at once, and sure enough, when she turned around, Ryan was there in the doorway to the vast rotunda they stood within. She swallowed at the sight of him—he was bloodied and limping and still dripping wet from that vodka waterboarding Luke had given him—but she stood her ground. His presence was not going to stop her. Nothing was going to stop her from doing what she had to do.

"This does not concern you, Ryan," she told him, already turning back to Joe. He was groaning on the floor beside her, curled up to protect what she hoped were severely broken ribs, and she drew her leg back again, prepared to smash them once more—

"Claire, wait!"

Her foot stopped halfway to Joe's stomach, more out of surprise than anything else. Who was _he_ to tell her to wait?

"What… What the hell are you doing to him?" Ryan asked. He seemed to have a hard time speaking, like he couldn't quite process the scene in front of him.

"What am I _doing to him_?" she asked, so incredulous at his inane question that she actually turned to face him. He was standing a couple feet closer now. "I thought it would be obvious," she said aloud, but he didn't seem to hear her. Nor did he look at her; his wide eyes were glued on Joe, who was still doubled over on the floor. "I'm beating the shit out of him, Ryan," she replied flatly, amid Joe's low groans of pain. "That's what I'm doing to him."

"What…" Ryan had to swallow before speaking. "What did he do?" His eyes darted between the two of them, and she watched as his pained eyes lingered on the multitude of bloody cuts on her neck. His voice grew tight. "Claire, what did he do to you?"

There were so many answers to that question. It would take hours, days, to list all the things he'd done to her. But she didn't want to waste time rehashing the past right now. She had better things to do. "He _existed,_" she finally said, foregoing all the rest. All the betrayal. All the torture. "And he's _still _existing. I don't think I need to give you any other explanation, Ryan."

"Yes," he countered at once. "Yes, you do. Claire, you need to tell me _exactly_ what—" he tried to say, but she ignored him, turning back to Joe.

He was on his hands and knees now, starting to get up, and she couldn't have that. She lifted her foot, bringing it up almost as high as her chest, and slammed it down onto his hand as hard as she could. The crack she heard this time actually was his fingers breaking, she knew, and when he howled in pain she allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. She was starting to understand why he liked hurting people so much. It made her feel so _damn_ good to hurt him.

She brought her other foot back, aiming to ram it against his chin this time, but before her shoe could connect with his face, arms wrapped around her middle and yanked her back.

"Stop it," Ryan ordered into her ear as he picked her up off the ground and dragged her away. "Stop it, Claire. Leave him; it's not worth it. It's over. The Bureau will be here soon, and you _cannot _be found attacking him. They'll arrest him and this will all be over; I swear to you it will _all_ be—"

"_NO_!" She screeched at the possibility of another arrest, of all the false promises that came with it, and fought against him as hard as she had against Joe. She would rather die than see him arrested again. She would rather be pinned back up against that wall again with a knife to her throat and his dick hard against her and her arms tied behind her back than see him arrested again. "No, you can't let them arrest him! You can't! Let _go of me_!" she screamed, thrashing against him as if possessed. She felt Ryan's grip loosen slightly around her middle, possibly in shock at the amount of fight left in her, and she took advantage of that, kicking him hard in the shin—so hard that he dropped her at once and then fell to the ground himself.

She landed on top of him, her fall cushioned from the hard marble floor by his body. Her elbow smacked into something solid when she fell, and she winced as the pain radiated out, but when she turned her head to nurse it, she was surprised to see that her elbow hadn't hit the marble floor at all.

No, she'd banged her elbow up against the gun strapped to Ryan's hip.

_The gun._

Her breath caught in her throat as she laid her eyes on it. Ryan was groaning beneath her, reaching a hand back to massage his head that had hit the rock floor, and she knew she only had a few seconds before he came back to himself. _The Bureau will be here soon, _Ryan had said. _They'll arrest him. _She didn't have time to torture him anymore; she knew that now. She didn't have time to drag it out like she wanted to—like she knew he would've done to her, if given the chance. She needed that gun. She had to get it done before they came. She had to be the one to do it.

So she didn't think, didn't say anything—she just grabbed the gun and scrambled to her feet.

Despite his dizziness, Ryan must've felt it when she took the gun, because he looked up a moment later, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand instinctively reach for his side, and close around nothing more than air.

"What—" He looked around, feeling the ground for his weapon, but quickly broke off. She didn't need to look at him to know the look on his face—eyes wide, mouth slightly agape, skin pinched in worry. "Claire…" She listened to him rise to his feet—he seemed to be having some difficulty—but still, she didn't turn. She couldn't take her eyes off Joe, not when he was this close, not when she finally had a way to end him once and for all. "Claire, no," Ryan said. She could hear his footsteps coming closer to her, but she ignored him, focusing on the weapon in her hands and the person she was going to use it on. "No, no, no. Claire, don't do this. Claire, listen to me—"

"He is _not _being arrested, Ryan. Not again." She didn't look at him as she spoke, but kept her eyes on Joe, still on the ground, as she held the gun. She adjusted her grip on it, tightening and loosening her fingers as required. She'd never shot one off before, but she'd seen many others do it enough times, so she knew the movements. It wasn't complicated. "If he gets arrested, he'll just escape again and we'll start this _all_ over and I am _not_ letting that happen. I am not going to go through this _again_. Not for a _third_ _fucking_ _time_, Ryan."

"Claire, stop. You're not thinking straight. I don't know what he said to you; I don't know what he did, but trust me—" Close enough now, Ryan grabbed her arm and pulled her back "—it's not worth killing—"

"STAY OUT OF THIS, WILL YOU?" she screamed, shoving him off and wheeling around on him, gun still high. He drew back at once, falling back against the wall she'd just been pinned to in an effort to avoid the muzzle. She didn't lower it. She was fed up with all his interruptions, _more _than fed up with that asinine good-guy shtick he was forcing on her, and she didn't mind threatening him with the muzzle of a gun if it made him shut up and back off. "I _told you_ I came back because I wanted to kill him, I _told you_ I had to kill him—and now I am going to fucking _kill him_, Ryan. So stay out—"

"Are you really?"

She whirled around at the sound of Joe's voice, irrationally prepared to have to fight him off, but he was still on his knees, spitting out blood and heaving for breath. Even still, his dark eyes shone up at her when he looked up, somehow managing to taunt her even as she held a gun and towered above him. She suddenly understood his predilection for removing the eyes from his victim's heads. She wanted to claw his out with her bare hands.

"Yes," she told him, stepping squarely in front of him and aiming the gun at his head. "I'm going to kill you. I'm—"

"And what are you going to tell our son, hm?" He held up his hands in surrender when she lunged forward at the mention, her finger twitching on the trigger. "I'm just curious," he excused, leaning back until she retreated back to her original position. "I just want to know. What are you going to tell Joey when he asks where his father is? He's met me, remember. He knows who I am now. He'll be curious about my fate."

As much as she tried to hold herself together, Claire's chin still shook at the mention of her son. Even when she clenched her teeth together to try to stop it, she still shook. Her whole body shook. The gun rattled in her hands.

"Claire," Ryan called out behind her, "Claire, don't do this. Don't listen to him. Just give me the gun back. Give me the gun and we'll tie him up and we'll wait for the FBI and—" His voice grew hoarse and broke off. "Claire, please, _please_ just look at me—"

"Can't think of anything, can you, dear?" Joe asked. His voice was so quiet, so smooth. So controlled. It didn't break like Ryan's and didn't shake like hers, and she didn't understand how he could speak like this. He had been beaten to a pulp, she had a gun in his face, and he was defenseless… And yet somehow—_somehow_—he still found the right things to say and the right way to say them so that he kept himself alive another second longer. He mystified her, even now, even as she stood by and let it happen. How was he able to do this? "You've always loved telling him the truth about me, Claire," Joe continued. "What are you going to tell him about this moment, hm?" Slowly, with a pained grimace, he rose onto knee, and then heaved himself up onto his feet.

"Get back down," she ordered, but he ignored her. "Back down!" she yelled, shoving the gun at him. He didn't even flinch.

"What are you going to tell him?" Joe asked again, a slight frown turning down his pale, blood-spattered face. "Are you going to tell him the truth still? Are you going to tell him how I stood here, beaten and defenseless, and you shot me, point-blank? Are you going to tell our little boy the story of how Mommy killed Daddy in cold blood?" He cocked his head to the side. When he smiled, his teeth were stained red with his own blood. "Hmm… What will he think of you then, I wonder? You'll no longer be the perfect mother you always hoped to be… No, in fact, you won't be much better than _me_ in the end, will you, sweetheart?"

"Shut up," Claire snarled, nearing him with the gun. "Shut the hell up; I will kill you!"

"He already has a murderer for a father, Claire. Do you really want to give him a murderer for a mother, too?"

"I'm already a murderer," she reminded him, "whether or not I kill you." For a second, she grinned. "Don't forget, I killed that lying, scheming, kidnapping, little bitch of yours. _Emma,_" she spat out the name like the filthy curse that it was and when she saw Joe's eyes flash in anger, she felt a rush of pride. A smile turned up the edges of her lips as she told him, "I bet she's decomposing out at that inn right now. She died on the ground and I didn't have time to move her… Maybe the wolves have gotten to her by now. I hope they tore her apart limb from limb. I hope they ate that smug little smile right off her face."

Joe shook his head. "No, no, no. No, you didn't kill her. I don't believe it. No."

"_Yes,_ _I did_." She reaffirmed her grip on the gun, and started inching closer to him. Only about ten feet separated them. She was so close, and only getting closer. "I killed her, Joe, and now I'm going to kill you."

"Claire," Ryan tried to interrupt from behind her. "You can't—"

"If you don't feel like watching, Ryan," she snapped at him, never taking her eyes off Joe, "then you can go into the other room. I don't need you here for this, and if you're going to keep trying to stop me—well, you better be prepared to take a bullet to the leg, because I am not letting _you, _of all goddamn people, take him away from me." She looked over her shoulder to glare at Ryan, telling him the words she knew he'd never accept, but that had to be said anyway: "He is _not yours _to kill."

She waited, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she turned back to Joe, but he didn't move. She had expected to see him back away in a slow retreat—or worse, run forward and try to disarm her again—but he did neither. Maybe he finally believed her—finally accepted that she would actually be doing this. Or maybe he'd just grown so tired of it all and wanted it finished. Whatever it was, she didn't care and it didn't matter. She turned her full attention back to Joe.

He hadn't moved since she'd looked away, but she could tell when their eyes met that he'd grown panicked. She didn't know what sort of team he and Ryan had created over the last twelve hours to come and save her, but she did know he'd been counting on Ryan being both able and willing to stop her. She watched his eyes they flew about the room—first to her, then to the gun, then to a spot over her shoulder she knew must be Ryan. She knew Joe was begging him silently with his eyes to intervene, and she really hoped Ryan wasn't going to listen. She didn't want to shoot at him, but she would if it came to that. No one, not even him—_especially _not him—was going to rip this opportunity to deliver justice away from her. She'd waited eleven years for this. She'd been betrayed, tortured, raped, and nearly killed countless times for this. He was _hers_.

"You know," Claire began, slowly making her way towards Joe once more, "I've thought about what you said, about what to tell Joey. And I think I've made up my mind." With every step forward she made, he took one backward. She watched the space behind him as it grew smaller and smaller, and felt excitement rise in her chest. He only had five feet until he'd be backed up against that railing over the balcony of the rotunda, with nothing but a cavernous space and a long, fatal fall behind him.

"Yes," she smiled tightly, holding the gun level with Joe's face as she neared him, "I think I will tell Joey the truth, just like you said. I'll tell him how I shot you while you were defenseless, after I'd beaten you with my own hands. I'll tell him how I did it in cold blood. But before I get there, I'll start by telling him the first part of the story—you remember, the part where Daddy raped Mommy." Joe's eyes flashed at that, and she could see the anger and disbelief in them. _No, _they told her. _You wouldn't._ "Oh, yes," she nodded, "I'll tell him about that. I'll tell him _all _about it: how you held a knife against my neck and tried to fuck me. How I begged you to stop, how I screamed and I cried, but you wouldn't listen. You wouldn't back off. And how my _only choice_ was to shoot you dead, because I knew you'd _never stop _unless I killed you."

"No," Joe scoffed, shaking his head, calling her bluff. "No, he's a boy. He's a bloody _boy, _Claire_._ He's eleven years old. You would never tell him that. You would _never_ say that to him."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows rose, and for the first time in nearly two years, she laughed with real humor. "Wouldn't I, though? Like you said, Joe, I _do _love telling him the truth about you. And you're right—he _is_ a boy." Her eyes narrowed, and the mirth from her laugh evaporated in the tense air. "He needs to learn the proper way to treat women before he becomes a man. And this will teach him, I think. He'll see his poor beloved mother all bruised and bloody and it will teach him to never, _ever_ act like his father. It will teach him to _never_ forgive you for what you've done to us."

Joe swallowed, backing up as she neared, but there was nowhere to go anymore. His back was pressed against the railing now, and she was getting so close that he didn't have space to run right or left without her reaching him first. And he knew it. She smiled when she saw the realization of that fact light up his eyes. There was nowhere to go. There was no escape. She was going to kill him, and they both knew it.

"Or maybe…" She drew out the words slowly, carefully, as she brought the muzzle of the gun right up to his lips. "Maybe I'll tell him another story. A story about how Daddy fell to his death over the back of a railing." Joe's hands instinctively grasped the iron fencing behind him, his knuckles going white as he held on. He tried to lean away from the gun she pointed at his face, but there was nowhere he could go that she couldn't reach him. "Yes, I think I'll tell him that. About how his father just _couldn't live _with what he'd done. All the innocent people he'd killed. All the lives he'd ruined. It's a kinder legacy than you deserve, but I can stomach telling it to him if it means getting rid of you once and for all." Claire pressed the gun harder against his lips, and smiled when he held his teeth together and tried to resist. She leaned close, her face inches from his as her lips twisted up into a smile and she whispered, "Open your mouth for me, love."

He refused—as she had—but she overpowered him in the end. It wasn't hard, not when she had a gun to his face and a knife in her other hand.

"Don't worry," she whispered, shoving the gun so far into the back of his mouth she heard him gag. "I'll tell our son what happened. I'll tell him the truth, every last bit." She didn't blink as she stared him down, and neither did he. She knew he could see it in her eyes—he could see what was coming; he could see she was going to kill him. "I'll tell about how his daddy begged for my forgiveness, again and again and again, before he died. And I'll tell him how I never once_—not once_—gave it to him. Not even when he held a knife against my throat, not even when he tried to rape me—no, I _never _gave him what he wanted. _And do you know why_?" She pushed the gun deeper into the back of his mouth, and spoke louder above his grunt of pain: "Because I would rather be raped and murdered than _ever_ forgive you for what you've done to me and to _my_ son."

He sputtered around the gun—no doubt trying to say something as she choked him with the muzzle—but she didn't give him a chance to speak. He wouldn't get to have any famous last words, not if she had anything to do with it.

But still he struggled against her, trying to shove her off with his arms, trying to kick at her with his feet, but she just pushed that gun further into his mouth, and, when she got her left hand free from his that had managed to grab her, she drove the knife deep into his gut. She made sure it entered his stomach in the same place she'd stabbed him the first time, and listened to him try to scream in pain around the gun as she sawed through the poorly-sewn scar.

"Something you wanted to say?" she asked, bending closer to him as she twisted the knife and hacked at his stomach. "Oh, I know." The edges of her lips turned up in a joyless smile. "It's 'Lord, help my poor soul,' right?" She let go of the knife, leaving it inside him, and put both hands on the gun. "You never were very original."

There was more blood than she expected after she pulled the trigger. It came out both sides: splattering her in the chest on one end, and then cascading out the back of his head on the other as she blew it off. She could hear the dull slapping sound of the piece of his skull hitting the marble floor far below them after it flew over the railing. His body went limp in front of her, his eyes sagging half-closed, his open mouth dribbling blood, and she didn't think twice about tipping him over the side.

She stared down, almost unseeing, as he fell, and fell, and fell, and finally hit the ground—face up. There was a dull _thump, _accompanied by a loud _crack,_ as his body landed on the marble floor, and then the blood started spreading. It pooled around him, a crimson lake that extended out from his smashed skull to create a wavy red halo around what was left of the rest of his head. She almost smiled at the macabre sight. Of course he would get the last word, and manage to give her the finger, even from beyond the grave. Of _course_.

There was little she cared to remember after that.

At some point, probably immediately, Ryan appeared at her side and took the gun, wiping her fingerprints off it as he pulled her away from the railing. He kept telling her again and again that it had been self-defense, and that that's what she had to say if the FBI ever found out the truth and started questioning her about specifics. _He was threatening you, _Ryan told her, he words running together as thee approaching sirens grew louder and louder. _He was attacking you. You were alone and you didn't have a choice—you had to protect yourself, you had to kill him. Tell them that. Be sure to tell them all of that, Claire._

She hardly listened to a word he said.

At some other point, maybe a few hours later, they _had _found out the truth, and they _were_ questioning her, and she gave her answers truthfully. Ryan had whispered the details of some fabricated story in her ear, as they'd been driven to the nearest police station to be interviewed, but she didn't bother retelling it. She didn't need his carefully crafted lies, nor the protection they offered. She wasn't ashamed of what she'd done.

In fact, she was proud of herself, and that's what she focused on. She had not felt proud in years. She had not felt anything but shame and humiliation and judgment—for years and years and years—but now, she felt something new. It warmed her and energized her and it made her lips twitch into a smile every couple minutes. She—out of all the cops and all the FBI agents and all the people in entire the world—_she _had done it. Where all the others had failed, she'd beaten him. She'd killed him.

And no matter what came next—no matter what the FBI decided about her guilt or her innocence—she was empowered by that knowledge. By that pride. She had done it. She didn't care if they locked her up for the rest of her life or they let her go in the next two minutes. She was finally free from him, and her son was finally safe, and that was all that mattered. It was all she had ever wanted.

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**Author's Note: **As Natalie Zea would say, Ain't nothin' like bitches doing murder.

Thank you for reading! Reviews would make my day. :) I absolutely loved writing this and I would love even more to hear your thoughts on it! Thank you SO MUCH for reading!


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